Tech: dumping cookies

Subject: Tech: dumping cookies
From: kendall
Date: 02 Mar 04 - 08:31 AM

Can someone explain to me how to dump my cookies? (Shut up Spaw)

Since I got Win XP, I can't seem to figure out how to clean out the cookie jar.

Subject: RE: Tech: dumping cookies
From: Padre
Date: 02 Mar 04 - 08:45 AM

Kendall,

Go to 'start'
Then 'Control Panel
Then click on 'Internet Options'
when that screen appears, you will see: 'Temporary Internet Files'

and finally 'Delete Cookies'

That should help

Tom+

Subject: RE: Tech: dumping cookies
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 02 Mar 04 - 09:08 AM

Using "Hijack This!" found on the net in many places - you can do a similar thing - plus many other cleanouts of things that viruses etc can plant on your machine - plus you can tell it to leave certain cookies alone and not purge them.

Robin

Subject: RE: Tech: dumping cookies
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Mar 04 - 10:00 AM

I don't know the program Robin refers to, but since I remarked on another thread that keeping some cookies is useful, this might be a good program to explore. Sometimes I go through the cookies manually just to see what is in there (it's pretty appalling!). Like I said in the other place, keep your file of passwords handy so you can reset some cookies that you want next time you visit those sites.

I've used Window Washer and AdAware, and they have their strengths and weakenesses. You should be able to do a simple Google search on these programs to find reviews of them so you can decide for yourself. Most of them are free, or have free components that will do what you want.

SRS

Subject: RE: Tech: dumping cookies
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 02 Mar 04 - 10:14 AM

and don't forget that when you dump your cookies you will have to log back into the cat.

Subject: RE: Tech: dumping cookies
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 02 Mar 04 - 10:22 AM

There's a whole lots of Registry Cleaners & Registry Analyser Tools too (many freeware), some of which also let you play with your cookies - if you will pardon my expression...

Robin

Subject: RE: Tech: dumping cookies
From: Midchuck
Date: 02 Mar 04 - 10:26 AM

If you get into the list of cookies, you can pick out the ones you want to keep, and highlight them (you can highlight more than one file at a time by holding down "control" as you click on them). Then when you've got the ones you want to keep highlighted, you click on "edit" on the upper left, then on "invert selection" in the pull-down menu. That highlights all the ones that you didn't highlight, and un-highlights all the ones that you did. Then you hit "delete."

Peter.

Subject: RE: Tech: dumping cookies
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 02 Mar 04 - 01:14 PM

I just peeked and there are 1001 more or less cookies. I can identify only a few- most are in computer gobbledegook so I have no way of knowing which ones are subscription services, etc. that I should keep.
Mudcat is easy to renew.
Would a technician be able to identify them for me

Subject: RE: Tech: dumping cookies
From: DonMeixner
Date: 02 Mar 04 - 01:17 PM

Q, dump them all.

Don

Subject: RE: Tech: dumping cookies
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 02 Mar 04 - 01:43 PM

Most of them you'll never need. The result will be that next time you log on to a newspaper or to Amazon or something you'll have to sign in again.

Subject: RE: Tech: dumping cookies
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Mar 04 - 02:11 PM

Hi all,

I am having a helluva time getting to the Mudcat. I got here by "Cache'. Regular way doesn't work. Anyone else having this trouble? Could someone please let Joe know, and maybe he can reset my cookies from his end?

Thanks, all.

Bruce Murdoch

brucie

Subject: RE: Tech: dumping cookies
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Mar 04 - 02:20 PM

Thanks, I had forgotten how to do this. The only cookie I care about is Mudcat anyway.

Subject: RE: Tech: dumping cookies
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 02 Mar 04 - 04:03 PM

Once you find your cookies, they are simple text files, although the "text" is not usually very readable. You can "back up" the cookies you want to keep just by copying them somewhere else. This lets you "clean out" by deleting all of them, and then copy the good ones back.

The only difficulty with this is that some cookies have an "expiration" built in, so that they are supposed to delete themselves after a certain time, and you may end up restoring "obsolete" ones if you don't update your keepers occasionally.

You can do a backup "legally" in IE under File - Import/Export, and select export cookies to file; but you'd want to do the export after you've removed the trash. Put them back with the same utility, just select import cookies.

For cleanup, if you don't recognize it, you don't need it. The worst that will happen is that you'll have to log in somewhere if you accidentally delete one that might have been helpful.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: dumping cookies
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 02 Mar 04 - 08:43 PM

To see your cookies in XP, click start, my computer, then double click C drive, Documents and Settings, Owner, Cookies.

We then highlight the ones we want to keep, go to edit, invert selection and hit the delete key. If in doubt, we delete them.

Bev and Jerry

Subject: RE: Tech: dumping cookies
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 03 Mar 04 - 04:29 AM

To repeat - "Hijack This!" - I have the free version - simplifies this task enormously...

Robin

Subject: RE: Tech: dumping cookies
From: pyewacket
Date: 03 Mar 04 - 06:55 AM

Can you direct me to the "Hijack This " Web page?
Thanks.
pyewacket

Subject: RE: Tech: dumping cookies
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 03 Mar 04 - 07:05 AM

My version

* HijackThis v1.97 *
Written by Merijn - [e-mail]
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/files/hijackthis.zip
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/index.html


It's also available from most S/W download places...

Robin

Subject: RE: Tech: dumping cookies
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 03 Mar 04 - 07:11 AM

oops return key...

this one is perhaps better for just purging cookies regularly - it remember the important ones you want to keep and puts them in the 'to keep list' so youcan just purge all the rest.

This program's home page
http://www.danish-shareware.dk/soft/emptemp/
I have a mailing list to inform users of new versions. Go to the home page (above) to join the list.

Find more of my freeware here
http://home.get2net.dk/fec/software/software.html

E-mail
[e-mail]

Empty Temp Folders (emptemp) helps you manage folders that contain temporary files, left over by other applications. These folders may have names like temp, tmp, msdownld.tmp, cookies, temporary internet files or history.

Also emptemp will let you list and delete cookies, history files (Recent) and URLs (Temporary Internet Files). This requires MS Internet Explorer version 5+.

Emptemp also has a search function to let you find temporary files outside the normal temp folders. Any program can leave behind temporary files or backup files anywhere on your harddisk. These files have file types like .tmp, .bak, .$$$, .old and .log. You can add your own file types and let emptemp find these files for you. Then you can delete some or all of them.

Emptemp can display the amount of memory the content of the clipboard takes up, and delete it. And it can find broken shortcuts (.lnk files) on your harddisk, so you can delete or fix them.

Furthermore EmpRunner is included. It can be used to run the emptemp program at certain intervals.

Subject: RE: Tech: dumping cookies
From: kendall
Date: 03 Mar 04 - 10:25 AM

Guest Mar. 2 at 2:20 was me. Kendall.

Subject: RE: Tech: dumping cookies
From: Art Thieme
Date: 03 Mar 04 - 12:20 PM

SpyBot

Subject: RE: Tech: dumping cookies
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 03 Mar 04 - 12:38 PM

Most of the suggestions so far have been pretty good, but we haven't really answered the original questions ..."where's da cookies."

If you haven't dug around in WinXP, it can be a little confusing.

On your boot drive, usually C:\, you'll find a folder called "Documents and Settings." In this folder, you will find a folder for each "user." In WinXP there will be one for "Administrator," one for "Default User," one for "All Users" probably one you put your name on when you set up WinXP. There may be additional ones, but that depends on how you set up your installation.

Each of these latter folders will probably contain a sub-folder called "cookies."

To manually delete cookies, you have to go through each string of C:\Documents and Settings\username\cookies, inserting the appropriate username for each one that appears on your machine.

Each of the same username folders will also contain a folder called "Local Settings," and there will be a "Temporary Internet Files" folder in each "Local Settings" folder. There will probably be many cookies in each of the the "Temporary Internet Files" folders.

To manually delete cookies, you also have to got through each C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files location, and clean house.

You'll also find a C:\Documents and Settings\Local Service\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files in some setups, and C:\Documents and Settings\Internet Service\Local Settings, that may contain folders called "cookies."

There is also C:\Windows\Temp\Temporary Internet Files\Cookies to sweep out.

And if you really want to clean things out, you can look at C:\WINDOWS\system32\config\systemprofile\Local Settings\Temporary Internet Files. There really shouldn't be any cookies here, you can't read most of what is here, and you may have to log on as administrator to change anything - but for completeness there's "temp internet" stuff in the folder. Under most circumstances, I would NOT recommend messing with stuff in this folder.

If you want to save some cookies, you can use the IE "File - Export," but the default location that it gives you is in C:\Documents and Settings\username\cookies. If you then use IE Tools - Internet Options - delete Cookies, and/or - delete Temporary Internet Files, it usually deletes everything in this folder, along with the Temporary Internet Files\Cookies folder(s), so it's not much good for backup. When you export cookies, you need to browse to a folder you create for yourself somewhere else - not a standard WinXP or IE folder - to put the backup.

Restoring cookies from a backup is "unpredictable" at best. Sometimes they work, but often they don't; so most of the time you'll likely end up doing the log-in to get a working cookie back in place.

As an incidental note, the two most highly recommended programs for "cookie cleaning," AdAware and Spybot, do not appear to search out all the places where there may be cookies. Spybot, in particular, appears to search only in places that "belong" to the currently logged-on user. I haven't researched this *fully; but if you've been relying on one of these programs to "make you safe" you might want to take a quick look at the "other places" to make sure that there aren't a few spy-crumbs lying about.

*I'd need to log on as a different user and surf to pick up some spy-cookies to test this.

Generally, if you always boot the same way (as the same user) and do all your surfing with this same "user" identity, all the cookies will be in one or two places, but if you have multiple users you may have to poke around a bit to find all of them. Windows Explorer - Search - all files and folders - search for "Temporary" and/or "Cookies" in the filename - should find all of the locations on your machine.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: dumping cookies
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 03 Mar 04 - 06:06 PM

JohnInKansas

Good point - I'm still a Win98 user for financial reasons - I don't know how EmpTemp handles XP - perhaps someone who does, may care to enlighten us here.

Robin

Subject: RE: Tech: dumping cookies
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 03 Mar 04 - 06:24 PM

Are you ---who have given much technical info---saying that by going to "FIND" typing in COOKIES and when that file opens and you delete those you do not want they are still there in other folders?

I know it takes forever to delete them since copies keep re-appearing and you then have to delete them. They breed faster than rabbits.   I want to keep some--such as Mudcat and certain financial organizations that require them for me to access.


I am using XP

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: Tech: dumping cookies
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 04 Mar 04 - 03:13 AM

Bill H -

They're splattered all over the place in WinXP. If you always log onto your machine with the same "user identity" and do all your surfing with that log-in, they will normally be only in the Documents and Settings\username\Cookies, and in "Temporary Internet Files" for that user.

The places where they show up are actually pretty "logical," but until you've poked into all the places to confirm that you know where they're going on your machine it's pretty easy to delete them one place and leave some in the place or two that you didn't check out.

IE "Tools - Internet Options" has two buttons: "Delete Cookies" and "Delete Temporary Internet Files." If you use these two buttons, they'll generally clean out everything for the user id that's logged on; but that doesn't give you the option of keeping the few cookies you may actually want.

Actually, if you use Windows Explorer and search from C:\, it should show you all of the places named "cookies" or all of the places named "Temporary" (Generally, only a few places, including "Temporary Internet Files," spell it out. Most other places just abbreviate "Temp.") You probably do need to turn on the click boxes in search to "search system files" and "search hidden files." Until you've determined that on your setup the way you use it there are only one or two places where you actually find them, you should check out all the possibilities, at least once.

John